Whiskey Shots and Cheap Cigarettes
by Kyndeyrn
Summary: Oh, how it had been a beautiful year, but the nature of beauty is that it’s fleeting and spring was coming once more, bringing with it this never ending torrent or life-evoking showers."


Disclaimer: "Remember to learn to forget, Whiskey shots and cheap cigarettes. Well I'm not stoned, I'm just fucked up, I got so high, I can't stand up. Well I'm not cursed, 'Cuz I've been blessed, I'm not in love, 'Cuz I'm a mess." –Green Day (21st Century Breakdown album).

Warnings: Slash. A bit AU. A bit OOC.

References: "Not with a bang but a whimper." –Hollow Men by T.S. Elliot

A/N: Well, eight weeks into college and things are still going great. Here's a nostalgic oneshot just for the heck of it. Hadn't written a Harry/Draco in a while and I was starting to miss them.

Whiskey Shots and Cheap Cigarettes

Tiny rain droplets coated the window, calling to mind a fragile sheet of sugar about to be smashed into oblivion with the slightest tap of a finger. The Knight Bus lurched and the droplets jolted, crashing into one another and running together in watery veins. Harry, too, snapped out of a reverie, pulling his head away from the cool window where he had been resting it.

Oh, how it had been a beautiful year, but the nature of beauty is that it's fleeting and spring was coming once more, bringing with it this never ending torrent or life-evoking showers. Cornwall. Harry still had a few hours left of this journey to nowhere. He slowly pressed his forehead back against the glass, slipping again into a world that no longer was.

You cannot hate someone without growing to love them as well. No, perhaps this is not entirely true, but the potential for love is there, hidden deep within the fires of emotion. Harry had never wanted to find this out, but he could not stop it from finding him. He supposed he had always held a grudging admiration for the boy. Not many people could bring forth that kind of fury within him and it scared him a bit, this lack of control. When the realization of this admiration trickled into his conscious mind he knew he was lost.

Was he dreaming or was he sinking deeper into the past? Did it matter? He could see nothing through the rain-blackened windows of the bus and the passengers around him dozed fitfully. Why not then indulge, if only for a few moments, in that which is timeless.

The first time it happened occurred in a rainstorm much like the one in progress outside. The Quidditch team had deteriorated in skill since Wood had left, Harry had not. Slytherin won, though Gryffindor had captured the Snitch. He and Draco were engaged, as usual, in their biweekly fighting match over some trivial insult that had slipped habitually from the blonde's lips. Harry found himself pinned beneath the other boy, both panting hard, when he realized what this situation might appear as under other circumstances. The thought shocked him so much that he managed to gain the strength to push his aggressor off and walk quickly away to a stream of jeers before his mind could travel any further in that direction.

Harry felt a smile come to his lips as these memories drifted through his head and, for just a moment, he allowed himself to pretend he was still there, bumbling about in those halcyon days.

After the first time on the pitch, the thoughts of this nature became more frequent. It was twisted, he knew, and wrong, to be fantasizing about his enemy in such a manner, and yet, from it, he derived some sick sort of pleasure. At first the idea repulsed him and he shunned it. Later on it still repulsed him, but at the same time he felt drawn towards these images that had no place in his head. He gleaned amusement from what others might say had they known what he was envisioning and often found himself grinning as he pictured their expressions.

Had he been foolish back then? No, he didn't think so, just curious, an adolescent trekking into uncharted territory. Little different than what he was doing right now, though perhaps without the factor of that wild excitement that had accompanied him so often in those days.

"Who is it?" asked Hermione one day over breakfast.

"Hm?" countered Harry wittily.

"Who are you thinking about?"

"Potions." Harry responded frantically, caught off guard by the question. He supposed his answer wasn't entirely false, but the pictures in his brain weren't the ones often conjured at the word "potions". They did have to do with the classroom and with a certain boy in the class, but beyond that any resemblance to the subject completely dissipated. "Why?" Harry inquired, several seconds too late to appear as someone whose attention is engaged completely in the conversation at hand.

"Oh, no reason. You just gave me an entirely inappropriate look when I asked you to pass the marmalade." Ah, so that's where the part about the marmalade had come from.

Harry blushed scarlet, "Ah, well, you know potions. That class sure does make me…" He trailed off, his mind fresh out of brilliant excuses.

"It's Draco Malfoy, isn't it?" She inquired matter-of-factly.

He dropped his fork. It landed with a clatter on his plate, but he did not bother to pick it up. "What makes you say that?" He hissed angrily.

"Eh, just how you look at him in class. And how you look over curiously whenever Ron insults him and how you very rarely join in. Not to mention the lack of fights you've had with him lately. Oh, and you didn't deny it when I asked you right now." She looked very, very smug.

She was far too perceptive, Harry reflected in retrospect. Though without her, his obsession might have gotten nowhere. Though maybe, the dark bitterness looming along the edges of his tired consciousness interjected, that might have been for the best.

"So what are you going to do about your Draco thing?" Hermione asked out of the blue several days later.

"What Draco thing?" Harry pointlessly feigned ignorance.

Hermione blatantly ignored the feeble attempt, "I think you should just go for it."

Harry sighed and glanced around. The common room was deserted. Blissfully. "Yeah…but when?" Harry asked, shocked that she had so easily engaged him in this topic.

"Why not during Care of Magical creatures? We're working in the forest so everyone will be quite spread out. Just go for it then."

Harry went for it then. He didn't say anything before he kissed him; he didn't have anything to say. He just did it before the other boy had a chance to make a snide remark about his presence. Draco flushed scarlet and strode away in what Harry assumed was a fit of unspeakable rage. The whole affair was conducted in silence. Though it hadn't gone according to Harry's elaborate fantasies, he was glad to have done it. At least, now, he knew the reality of the sensation and the reality of its consequences. Imagine his surprise when, several days later, a pair of sinewy arms pulled him into a broom closet and a pair of silent lips began kissing him fiercely.

The memories burned clear in Harry's mind and he held on to them as a drowning man might cling to a piece of driftwood, useless to anyone else, but the world to him. Damn it, this is why he did not submerge into those shadowy realms! It was always so hard to force himself free from their grip. But, then again, did he really want to?

The summer was beautiful and passionate in the way things that cannot last often are. He sought comfort in the other boy's embrace and Draco, in turn, held him only harder, knowing deep down even the strength of this physical embrace would not be enough when fall descended upon them. At that point fate decreed that their paths must split as Harry had been accepted into Auror training and Draco was being sent to an advanced academy to further his study of the magical arts. Promises flew thick between their kisses and, when at last it came, their parting held within it a shred of hope for the future.

The future is so easy to talk about in the present. Plans are created, born with the strength of a closeness that's destruction is hard to formulate when it is still thriving in the heat of existence. But without fuel the fire dies and in some cases forever has a time limit.

Autumn passed with the same quiet sadness that accompanies dead leaves as they fall from the branches that once held them so fast. Letters passed between them, at first filled with the ruminants of fever and longing, then gradually drifting into a tepid disinterest before ceasing all together.

Lost as he was amidst his recollections, it was only now Harry realized how close he was to his destination. He checked his bags, though he knew they were packed properly. The action was more for the purpose of occupying his hands than anything. His mind still felt muddled, drunk on events that were forever his no matter how insubstantial they had become.

He received a card at Christmas. It was a formal thing; something you might obtain from a little-known colleague or a friend you had not heard word from in ten years or more. It hinted nothing at what had so recently absorbed their lives, containing merely holiday wishes and a practiced signature as cold as the snow that coated the ground. It seemed to have settled on Harry's heart as well. He did not respond to the note.

The droplets now paved a different window, one belonging to an airplane set to depart from Heathrow within the hour. An unconventional method of travel for a wizard, yes, but one that would not be anticipated by any impassive letters seeking to find him. He attempted to reflect clearly on the whole encounter and as he did, he felt the smoke lift ever so slightly from his memory-clouded head.

It was ironic, almost to the point of humor that this relationship built entirely on baseless passion had gone out not with a bang, but a whimper. When something is founded on stimulation, it must be constantly stimulated, and letters alone are not the type of fuel it requires. Perhaps it had not been created to stand the test of time. Perhaps it not been born to be good and true and honest. Perhaps it had simply ignited in order to be beautiful, if only of a bit. And perhaps this was enough.


End file.
